Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis sparred with a reporter in an interview that aired on Monday when asked if former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
NBC News reporter Dasha Burns asked the Florida governor: “Yes or no, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”
“Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20th every four years is the winner,” DeSantis responded.
The video then shows a cut and picks up with Burns saying: “Ok, but respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question and if you can’t give a yes or no on whether Trump lost then how…”
“No, of course he lost,” DeSantis said. “Joe Biden’s the president.”
“But the issue is, I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election,” he continued.
The video then cuts again and picks up with DeSantis saying: “So, I don’t think it was a good run election. But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening and you shouldn’t have provided all the money to fund the mail-in ballots.”
NBC News said that portions of the interview would air throughout the day.
WATCH:
Exclusive: Florida Gov. DeSantis rejects former President Trump's claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
"Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner," DeSantis said in a @NBCNews interview. https://t.co/Sv8j1Xtuyi pic.twitter.com/Eo3cvYHnYt
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 7, 2023
During an event in Iowa late last week, DeSantis was asked by reporters about his view on the 2020 presidential election.
“It was not an election that was conducted the way I think that we want to, but that’s different than saying Maduro stole votes or something like that,” he said. “Those theories, you know, proved to be unsubstantiated.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP
DeSantis later signaled that as president, he would pardon Trump in the two federal criminal cases in which he has been indicted.
“I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the country to have a former president that’s almost 80 years old go to prison,” he said. “And just like Ford pardoned Nixon, sometimes you’ve got to put this stuff behind you, and we need to start focusing on things having to do with the country’s future. This election needs to be about Jan. 20, 2025, not Jan. 6, 2021.”